PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Human Entertainment
RELEASE DATE: 06/28/91 – (JP)
Fastest 1 might be the only Formula 1 game with the audacity to provide a mere one-third of the screen for the actual racing. Compare this to Super Monaco GP, which not only gives you two-thirds of the screen, but also provides a first-person view so you feel like you’re in the driver’s seat.
Of course, I’ve played very few Formula 1 games. Perhaps Fastest 1 is just sticking with a time-honored tradition of poor perspective in F1 racers, and Super Monaco GP is the rebellious outlier. Whatever the case, Fastest 1’s slim viewing window coupled with its incredible challenge is enough to quell my coulda-been racing career.
A shame, as Fastest 1 provides a lot of content for 90s F1 enthusiasts to embrace. 16 separate tracks based on real-life courses, 18 playable vehicles, and even slightly altered team and player names of the time, like Moerrari (Ferrari) and Thierry Booing (Thierry Boutsen). You can race to your heart’s content in World Championship mode, perfect each course’s tight turns in Test Run, or race head-to-head against another player or the computer in Battle mode.
Battle mode in particular offers several play options, including you vs. three computer opponents, you vs. another player and two computer opponents, or, if you’re really bored, watching four AI racers fight their way to the finish line. In this mode, Human Entertainment generously provides two-thirds of the screen for racing, but unfortunately both-thirds are just as truncated and narrow as what you see in one-player mode.
Unless you’re well-versed in racing sims, you’ll likely need to practice before you start racing against the big boys, like “Ayrton Sessna.” Controls are what you’d expect. ‘A’ accelerates, ‘B’ brakes, and the D-pad turns and shifts, depending on whether you select manual or automatic transmission. Thing is, even if you select auto, you still have to shift out of neutral before you start the race. Strange!
Once you’re driving, it’s all about mastering the tight corners without sacrificing time. Unless you’re willing to put in hours or practice, or you just have an intuitive understanding of how to take tight corners with the vehicles and control scheme provided, Fastest 1’s demand for racing perfection will wear you down.
I spent my time mostly on the American GP, the first course. My thinking was if I can’t master my homeland’s course, then what chance do I have with the international courses. My first laps were abysmal. Just barely under two minutes a lap, usually because I’d fail to brake appropriately before I hit a turn and end up ramming a billboard (the billboards bring you to a complete stop, they are absolute villains). The more I drove, however, the faster I got, until eventually I hit the one minute and forty second mark consistently. Feeling somewhat confident in my abilities, I decided to enter the World Championship mode. To my surprise and eternal shame, the lowest time I could rank and still qualify was one minute and twenty-nine seconds. Cutting twenty seconds from two minutes to a minute forty was fairly easy, if only because I was driving so poorly in those early runs. But to cut another fourteen seconds when I felt like I had a solid understanding of the track? Not without a lot more laps and an unwavering desire to win.
If, like me, you’re not very good at the game, but you want to try all the courses anyway, thankfully Fastest 1 lets you do that in the Test Run mode. You enjoy that Canadian GP, friend. You savor it.
If you’re not very good at the game, but you’d like to advance in the World Championship mode, well, that’s unfortunate. Fastest 1 is for true racing kings, not pretenders who can’t handle a sliver of the screen to race with and certainly not wannabes who can’t brake and accelerate with proper form. Buy a ticket, enjoy the show, but stay the hell away from our multimillion-dollar F1 cars.
My pride: F
The game itself: D+
Above and Beyond
- Fastest 1 was only released in Japan, yet the entire game has English text.
- The game was set to be released in other territories in February or March 1993, titled Speedway Pro Challenge, but it was wisely cancelled.
- Fastest 1’s review scores upon its 1991 release were mediocre to poor with an average score of 49. The exception is the French game magazine, Joystick who gave it an 88 out of 100. Gotta love the French, those eternal contrarians.
- Fastest 1 is compatible with the bizarre third-party Mega Drive controller, the XE-1 AP (rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?). This controller, according to Sega Retro, “is the first analog thumbstick game controller ever released, and is primarily designed to simulate the control arrangements of real-life fighter aircraft for use with flying games like After Burner II.” It is… quite the work of art. But who knows? Perhaps with the help of this contraption, I could have flown my way to F1 victory.
